A brief but healing hejira

 

It is April 16.  Were she still with us, my mother would be 108 years old today.  Of more current history, I broke my right femur six months ago tomorrow, one of those life-altering events that can crop up.  “It takes six months to heal,” I was told, so that journey should be over by now.  Then why am I still limping, using a cane, being met by a wheelchair at airports.

I find myself in Irving, Texas, at a Comfort Suites as the guest of American Airlines.  There must be a special name for a day like this; a gift, a hiatus, a crack in the space-time continuum?  I should already have arrived home.  In fact, I should have been home two days ago.  Thanks to the pandemic the airlines are finding it difficult to stick to their usually rigid schedules.  I booked the flight from DFW airport two months ago, and since then airline traffic has surged, causing airlines to scramble.

As you can read elsewhere in this blog, my life over the past three years has known a deficit of social, spiritual and intellectual stimulation.  Not intending to be so literal, my ‘bloom where you’re planted’ philosophy kicked in; I turned my hand to an activity in reach…gardening.  I cultivated strawberries, planted a peach orchard, grew flowers to take to church and tried to propagate future shade trees.  I could not keep that up much longer, for the toll it was taking on my nearly-eighty year old joints.  And then I fell.

Stewing in my juices for six months with limited mobility created a fertile ground for exploring the ramifications of my current situation and future options.  One thing was certain, I missed interacting with friends and family. I miss having a purpose, where I could be of service to my family and community. I planned an exploratory expedition, to see what other options might be out there for a retirement plan, as soon as I am mobile and tickets can be bought.

Factoring into all this is the pandemic and the rollout of vaccinations.  People I consulted here in Durango, Mexico had no knowledge of any rollout plan for here.  Circumstances are such that if I visit my cousin in Florida I would be eligible to get a quick appointment there and be vaccinated.  Because the Moderna requires 28 days between first and second shot, I could only get the first one this way.  I decided to book my trip to take me to Florida at the end of the trip, before heading to Charlotte to board my return to Durango. 

Sunday night late I received a call.  If I want the vaccine, I should arrive tomorrow morning at a destination 30 minutes away, and get in line.  The vaccine has become available for those over 65 with last names at the beginning of the alphabet, A to D.  I did go, and waited all day until 4 p.m. when I was finally poked.  The workers would continue until 8 p.m.

Back in town, in Canatlan, I realized that the road in front of the hospital clinic was taped off and filled with lawn chairs.  The same thing was happening in Canatlan.  I don’t know why I had to drive to get mine, and I don’t care.  I’ve got my first dose.  The end of my trip will come before the required day 28, so there is no need to go to Tampa for the second shot.

Two days later, on Wednesday, I boarded the plane in Durango and began my trip.  First I would visit my sister, in western North Carolina.  We would drive to her son’s house near Raleigh and visit with the large family he has generated.  Another 5 hour drive would take us to another son, my godson Stephen, and after a long weekend he would take me to the Amtrak.  Then my sister and her husband would drive back to their home.  I would take a train from DC to New York and spend a couple of weeks with an old friend at his home in the ‘burbs up the Hudson. Eventually I would wind up back in Charlotte, visiting another cousin for an overnight before boarding the plane for the return trip.  I was due back in Durango on April 14.

As luck would have it, the day we were to drive from my sister’s house to her son’s house, there was a death in the family.  Sarah was my age, she was the cousin with whom I spent summer breaks.  She had been in the hospital for two months, for what was to be a routine outpatient surgery.  It was botched, and it all went downhill from there.  Thanks to Covid, no one got to visit with her and cheer her up.  We got word on Friday.  The wake was one day only, on Sunday, and the funeral Monday morning. 

We headed out to Dennis’s house near Raleigh, as planned.  Saturday evening Dennis’s clan gathered at one of the four grandsons’ home, and it was raucous. I didn’t count noses, but my nephew told me that when his kids and grandkids gather, which they frequently do, they are 18 people.

Via miscommunication under the same roof, my sister and I both managed to book flights from Raleigh to Newark.  I had to return mine.  Tried that lately?  Paperwork!  I also had to return my ticket for Tampa, for which I got another airline credit.  I couldn’t consolidate the credits, because each market has its most efficient airline; I used United, American and Jet Blue for various legs of the trip. 

 

When we reached Newark Airport my friend and his car were waiting for us at the curb.  Problem was, while we’ve talked and emailed regularly over the years, we have not seen each other in decades.  This strange white haired guy stood looking at me.  I shyly glanced and looked away and glanced again, until I finally asked, “Eddie?”  He drove us through the Lincoln Tunnel through horrendous traffic to Penn Station.  We said goodbyes; I asked permission for a hug.  I felt a skeleton under my hands, as I grabbed him by the shoulders.  I knew he had been losing weight, but this handful of bones shook me up. 

In the excitement of the car trip from the airport to Penn Station, me trying to talk to Eddie and my sister in the back seat giving a running commentary on what she was seeing of the city and on Eddie’s driving, I carted all my bags out of the car.  I meant, however, to leave one suitcase and a plastic bag of vitamins I had purchased last week.  These proved to be as millstones around my neck; in the end I forgot the vitamins in a cousin’s car in Bayshore.

I was pleased to have a traveling companion.  My sister has maintained a number of good friends on Long Island through the years, and so it was a fun adventure.  Except for the funeral, of course.  Only a handful of relatives were there, we have all gotten old; mostly the place was filled with her church friends, her Solidarity Sisters. There was no big family wake.

Once Sarah was safely in the ground Loretta and I went our separate ways.  A friend met her and carried her off, while also depositing me at the correct LIRR train line.

I managed to arrive at Penn Station without having to change at Jamaica.  Then the task was to find the subway to Grand Central Station, and then find the right train to Croton-on-Hudson.  All this, while lugging two stacked suitcases, a back-pack purse, and a cane.  Thankfully, my friend met me at his local station and I was able to relax for the next couple of weeks, more or less.

Eddie introduced me to his food regimen.  He showed me the book by Dr. Gundry.  I read key parts of the theory for this diet, and some sample meal plans.  The author’s bugaboo is lectin.  All lectin is eliminated.  The only grains that don’t have lectin are sorghum and millet, apparently.  All sugar is bad, even food naturally rich in sugar like ripe bananas.  More accurately, the degree of ripeness of the fruit or vegetable determines if the sugar is good or bad. No honey, not even agave syrup.  He uses no salt.  The nightshade family is eliminated.  On the positive side, he uses avocado and olives freely (the saturated fats).  My friend has taken things a step further.  The author includes chicken and fish, but my friend has gone completely vegan.  When he explained some of this on the phone before the trip, of course my burning question was, well what else is left?  He said it was complicated.  I thought it bears some resemblance to the paleo diet, which has helped other friends of mine get their weight under control.  Eddie lost a lot.  Never being a vain person, or could I say never holding much regard for his appearance, he is wearing clothes better sized for a fat man.  His clothes hang on him.  No part of his body is exposed, below the neck and cuffs.  It is painful to love someone like this, because he lives in his own world like a barricaded fortress.  There is no one’s opinion that matters except his own.  His two-bedroom rented apartment is wall to wall with books, music CDs and DVDs (and VHS).  We share the same taste in these areas, and so I listened to great music and watched either classic or hilarious videos.  Because my leg was still tender I did not venture any excursions to the city, the Big Apple.

 I didn’t bother to learn how to use his TV system. He has no Smart TVs.  I watched my Netflix account on my phone a little.  I am glad I did, because when I returned to Mexico I discovered that this series is not shown in Mexico.  The title is ‘the Last Tango in Halifax’.  It originates in the UK, although Halifax is in Canada.  IMDB tells me the series is about eight years old and filmed in England.  I managed to see about two and a half seasons, and enjoyed it immensely.  It is romantic and hilarious.  Jimmy and I talked about relationships and how, once family becomes involved, they can be destroyed.  When this retired widow and widower rekindle their childhood flame, the two families open a Pandora’s Box.

Eddie drove me to Newark to catch the last domestic flight on my itinerary.  I flew to Charlotte, where Jimmy met me again at the airport.  Originally this was meant to be a truncated visit.  My original plan had me arrive in Charlotte from Tampa at 8 pm, and return to the airport at 3 a.m. for a 5 a.m. departure to Dallas and Durango.  Thanks to all the itinerary changes and glitches, I arrived midday Sunday and departed early Friday.  This first cousin once-removed is about twelve years younger than me.  Once when he was 17 years old I spent a week or two babysitting with him and four of his five siblings in Escondido, California.  We got to be good friends.  I made a few attempts to help clarify what a removed cousin is; don’t know if it ever sunk in.  His mother was my first cousin. I am delighted with the prospect that, if I am granted low-income housing by the Hendersonville housing authority, I will get to visit with him at least once a month.

During my earlier visit with my sister she had suggested that I fill out an application with the Hendersonville Housing Authority for one of their rent-controlled elderly housing units.  There wasn’t enough time to fill out the form and submit it, but we did visit the office and obtained information.  That office is only open on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.  So on Wednesday morning Jimmy drove me down to Hendersonville, a two-hour drive, and I spent time in the HHA office.  I submitted the completed application and had an eligibility interview. On the earlier visit the nice lady at reception had told me I was just the demographic they were looking for.  On the later visit I learned how much rent money I would have to pay, which would include gas and light.  Suddenly new possibilities appeared.

Now I am back home in El Pozole, in the County of Canatlan, in the State of Durango in the Sierra Madres.  I still have no hot water from the solar boiler on my roof, don’t know why.  The lovely hot showers I enjoyed over the past three weeks are just a memory.  My entertaining brood of kittens have scattered, and no longer feel permitted to come in the house.  On the one hand, the house will remain cleaner, no cat fur and bird feathers everywhere, no clutter pushed down from tables, no tissues torn apart across rooms.  But also no joy of watching their antics, flying and leaping, crouching with tail twitching, and sprawling along my legs sleeping.  The mother of the clan has not yet made an appearance, along with one black and white son.  The other son from that litter did show up today, unafraid to come inside, seeking my lap and comforting strokes.

My delightful mid-sized dog whom I call Baby Lalo was waiting for me when I got back.  His fur was dusky with rolled-in dirt and stunk of garbage.  I had left him with a friend, but he would go back and forth between her house and mine.  There were nights when she did not know where he was.  I suspect he was eating out of my neighbor’s garbage pit.  The first order of business was to bathe him.

I have to get into town to pay taxes, to get my second Moderna shot, and to consult with a town official about making my home marketable.  Technically I do not own the land my house is on.  Apparently the law permitting foreigners to own land was not passed until after this place was conceived, so this non-profit scheme was devised to get around that.  Now it needs to be sorted out so that I might get some reimbursement for my large investment, and move on with my life.  This is proving to be a complicated and lengthy process.

Compared to previous years, my acres look sun-dried and bleak.  Before I left, my little peach orchard was in bloom; I thought I would have peaches for the first time.  I toured them today and was surprised to find no buds, no tiny fruit, but branch tips dried and crinkly.  My friend tells me there was a bit of a hail storm while I was gone, knocking the buds off the fruit trees.  A disappointment for me, a financial disaster for citizens of El Pozole.  Our main income is from apple and pear trees.

I return refreshed.  I will struggle against slipping back into my normal apathy.  I will actively pursue a buyer for my house, be a responsible pet owner, and be more outgoing in seeing how I might serve my little community.  A brighter day is coming.